El-Rufai can’t shut me down by demolishing my property – Senator

A senator of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, has reacted to the demolition of his property by the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, in the state, noting that he has no case against the governor and has ‘forgiven him’.

Suleiman Hunkuyi said this while addressing journalists on Tuesday. He also explained that he still sees and takes Mr. El-Rufai, (a member of his party) as a brother, despite what he has done”.

The building was demolished early on Tuesday with the Kaduna government saying its owners failed to pay necessary charges and had been warned.

The demolished building is located at Sambo road and belongs to Mr. Hunkuyi, who leads a separate faction of APC in the state.

A Twitter account believed to belong to Mr. Hunkuyi, confirmed the demolition.

“In the early hours of today, the @GovKaduna Mallam @elrufai personally drove a bulldozer accompanied by armoured tanks to destroy my house at 11B Sambo Road. This is a new low and fighting dirty with such low level of pettiness is indeed unprecedented in Kaduna State,” the account tweeted sharing short videos of the demolition.

Last week, the APC faction, using the demolished building as its office, had issued a six-month suspension on the governor for ‘anti-party activities’.

“I wish to say in very few words that I am not here for the fact that the demolition exercise affecting one of my properties, personally in any way, afflicted me. No. I am here to express utilisation of power under our very own democracy,” he said.

“First of all, I think, you and all Nigerians may wish to know that the governor has personally led a demolition party of my own property which doubles as the state’s APC office in Kaduna state as part of my contribution to my party.

“I wish to say, that action, which was led by the governor’s insider this morning, as early as 4 A.M has been forgiven. I have no issues with him for doing what he did.

“He is my brother. For bringing down one of my houses, even if it is not my last house. I see no reason why I should lose any sleep but there are concurrent issues that go along with it.

“I ask questions; what will military be doing in a site at odd hours of 4 A.M. in a property, private (to someone) housing public institution, leading your own party, no matter the dispute in question? What will they be doing in a location like that at that hour?”

The senator declared that if the intention of pulling down that property is to ”shut him down”, it has given him more strong reasons to ”maintain his posture, belief and direction in standing strongly with the majority of the electorate of the people in Kaduna State.”

“In my own opinion, let it be an incident to grow democracy in my state. Let this be a rallying point for those who have been short-changed in any way in my state as regards the leadership of El-Rufai. It is not too much a price to pay for democracy to thrive in my state.

“You may need to know that that same property is the property that we started clamouring for support for the same governor for the people to elect. That same office he has been in and out uncountable number of times as the centre of his…, before the establishment of a campaign office.

“In case Mallam Nasir forgets and wish to push the boundary of personal feelings to express the way he feels against Hunkuyi, let me seize this opportunity to remind him that my own residence is at 18A Inuwa Wada Road. If he wishes to demolish that, he can go ahead.

“Let me also use the opportunity to remind Nasir that there is another property which I housed him, which he slept in so many times and we fed him in the course of bringing people together to elect him as governor and it is in Queen Elizabeth Road, Zaria,” he said.

When asked if he was aware of the reasons given by the state government for the demolition, he said, “I’m just hearing that from you now and I’m sure with every sense of responsibility that if what has been released now is anything to go by, shouldn’t there be a contravention order? Or a service on us to quit the activities of the party office?

“Shouldn’t there be other steps to carry rather than jumping into what they did. I don’t think there is anything to justify that activity of bringing the bulldozers led by himself (governor). I don’t need anybody to comfort me on that.”